> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://magic-post.mintlify.site/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Credits and allowances > How MagicPost grants, holds and spends AI credits: plan allowances, credit packs, registration credits, team sharing, per-run costs and admin adjustments. AI writing and AI media runs cost credits. Every user has two credit balances, and MagicPost keeps an append-only history of every movement. This page explains how credits arrive, how they are spent and what you can adjust as an admin. Users see their side on the [Credits](https://magic-post.mintlify.site/account/credits.md) page. ## The two balances | Balance | Label the user sees | Behavior | | - | - | - | | Plan allowance | **Plan allowance** | Set by the user's plan and renewed every month. Spent first. Unused allowance does not carry over. | | Credit packs | **Credit packs** | Bought separately or shared by a team owner. Never expire. Spent after the allowance. | The balance a user can spend is the total of both, minus anything on hold. A plan with **AI credits** set to **-1** gives an unlimited allowance. Runs are then recorded as covered by unlimited credits and nothing is deducted. ## How credits arrive | Source | What happens | Which balance | | - | - | - | | Registration | New accounts created through the registration form receive **Default Registration Credits**. | Plan allowance | | Buying or being assigned a Monthly, Yearly or Lifetime plan | The allowance is set to the plan's **AI credits**. | Plan allowance | | Renewing a Monthly plan | The gateway confirms the renewal charge and the allowance is set again. | Plan allowance | | Monthly refresh for Yearly and Lifetime plans | A scheduled task sets the allowance again on each monthly anniversary of the purchase. | Plan allowance | | Buying or being assigned a prepaid plan | The pack's credits are added. | Credit packs | | A team owner sharing credits | The member receives the credits as a pack. | Credit packs | | A referral commission with **Bonus Credits** set | The referrer receives the bonus. | Plan allowance | | An admin editing the user | The allowance is set to the number you enter. | Plan allowance | "Set" matters. The allowance is replaced, not added to. When a user starts or switches to a plan, whatever allowance they held, including registration credits, is replaced by the plan's credits. Credit packs are never touched by this. > [!NOTE] > > The plan's credits are renewed monthly on every recurring plan type. A Yearly plan is charged once a year, but its allowance is refreshed each month by the scheduler. ## Registration credits Open **General Settings** in the **Platform** section, stay on the **General** tab and set **Default Registration Credits**. It is the number of credits granted to a user automatically when they register for the first time. It must be a whole number of 0 or more. Click **Save**. Accounts created with a social login start with 0 credits, whatever this setting holds. ## What an AI run costs You set the price of each model. Users are charged the model's price for the model they pick. | Run | Price | Where you set it | | - | - | - | | Caption writing | **Credits per run** of the writing model | **Writing Models** | | Alt text for a picture | **Credits per run** of the writing model | **Writing Models** | | Image generation | **Credits per picture** of the image model, times the number of pictures | **Media Models** | | Video generation | **Credits per second** of the video model, times the clip length in seconds | **Media Models** | A price of 0 makes a run free. See [AI models](https://magic-post.mintlify.site/admin/ai-models.md) for the two model pages. ## Holds Before a run starts, MagicPost sets the cost aside as a hold. Held credits cannot be spent on anything else. * When the run produces a usable result, the hold is converted into a charge. For images and video the charge covers only what was delivered, for example the pictures actually saved. * When the run fails or returns nothing usable, the hold is released and nothing is charged. * A hold that nobody settles stops counting once it expires. A scheduled task also marks expired holds as released every hour. Users see held credits as **On hold** on their credits page, with the time at which an unsettled hold is let go. ## Team credits A team owner can move credits from their own balance to a team member with **Share credits** in **Teams**. The credits are taken from the owner's balance and given to the member as credit packs, so they do not expire and a plan renewal does not erase them. Credits from an unlimited plan cannot be shared. See [Teams](https://magic-post.mintlify.site/account/teams.md). ## Adjust credits as an admin **1. Open the user** Go to **Accounts** → **Users** and open the user. See [Users](https://magic-post.mintlify.site/admin/users.md). **2. Edit the allowance** Choose the edit action and change **Credits**, then save. The value you enter becomes the user's plan allowance. Credit packs are not changed. The history records the change as adjusted by an administrator. **3. Review the history** The user's page shows a **Credit history** card with the date, what happened, the change and the balance after it. Active holds are listed above the history with a **Release** button. Releasing a hold means the work it was held for is no longer charged. On a charge in the history, **Refund** gives the credits back to the balances they were taken from. Each charge can be refunded once, and the refund appears as its own entry. ## Scheduled tasks Two tasks keep credits accurate. Both run from the Laravel scheduler, so the cron job must be set up. See [Cron and queue](https://magic-post.mintlify.site/installation/cron-and-queue.md). | Task | When it runs | What it does | | - | - | - | | `credits:release-expired-holds` | Every hour, at minute 45 | Releases holds that passed their expiry. | | `credits:refresh-allowances` | Every hour, at minute 50 | Refreshes the monthly allowance of Yearly and Lifetime plans that are due, and ends unlimited credits whose plan has lapsed. | > [!WARNING] > > Without the scheduler, Yearly and Lifetime users do not get their monthly refresh, and expired holds keep credits out of reach until they are released. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.